Introduction to Information Literacy
by Glorious Clio
Summary: Annie overhears some librarians talking about decreasing the libraries hours from 24 hours to something more reasonable. The Greendale Seven, with the best of intentions, rally on different sides of the controversy.
1. Chapter 1

Title: Introduction to Information Literacy  
Pairing: None - just good old fashion group shenanigans.  
Rating: PG-13? Same as the show, I guess.  
Word Count: 1786  
Summary: Annie overhears some librarians talking about decreasing the libraries hours from 24 hours to something more reasonable. The Greendale Seven, with the best of intentions, rally on different sides of the controversy.  
Author's Note: I am a librarian at a community college, and I just want to take five minutes of your time and advocate for the institution. So often I've been asked by well-meaning family members "aren't libraries dying"? This is a response to that. Sort of. Every single question in here is one that has been asked at least once. Even if the group isn't asking a librarian.

Sadly, I don't have my own Greendale Seven equivalent, let alone own the rights to this show.

I'm still fairly new to this fandom. Constructive Criticism is welcome with open arms. Seriously.

...

It was nearing the end of the semester - tensions were high, snow banks were higher, and everyone was looking forward to the last Christmas break they would spend together as students.

"You guys, I have terrible news!" Annie cried, running in to Study Room F.

"What is it, Annie?" asked Shirley, emphasizing both syllables of Annie's name in her motherly way.

"I just heard two of the librarians talking - one of them is retiring, and since they can't afford to hire a new one, the library is decreasing its hours! It won't be open twenty-four hours anymore! How are we going to pull off our all-nighters?"

"Um, Wikipedia?" Jeff said absently while texting.

Abed frowned. "I have a deep distrust of Wikipedia. I've found too many errors on the Inspector Spacetime page, and every time I try and edit it, they tell me I don't have the authority."

"Abed! What if we started an Inspector Spacetime wiki?" Troy said suddenly.

Abed cocked his head to the side and measured up his friend and associate. "Cool. Cool, cool, cool." He initiated their secret handshake.

"You guys, this is serious," Annie insisted.

"What's the big deal? Winger's right. We gotta get with the times. It's all happening online now. Soon, we won't even need books. Look," Pierce said easily. He pulled out a tablet. "This is the future of books."

Britta shot back, "No it's not! You can't replace every single book with those things. And it would be stupid anyway! What would schoolkids in India do with those?"

"Um, make them?" Jeff tried.

"Shut up, Jeff, that's _China_. What I'm saying is, there's no way our overtaxed system can afford to buy them for every school, even if jaggy Republicans _wanted_ to invest in our education system. Which, they _don't!_"

"Britta, does everything have to be about politics?" Shirley asked with her sweetest voice.

"Actually, Shirley, the personal _is_political, or did you miss out on that feminist tidbit." Britta mentioned in what she thought was a casual tone.

"Oh, sorry, I was too busy raising the next generation to read your latest feminist blog!" Shirley's voice took a dangerous turn.

"You guys! Stop it. This is important! Especially if this is our last year here!" Annie tried to bring the conversation back.

Pierce was struggling to turn on his new tablet.

"Yeah yeah," said Jeff.

"Why don't we just ask a librarian if this is true," Britta asked. "If they hold all the answers."

"Okay," said Abed.

No one moved.

After a beat, Troy and Abed both yelled out, "BOOKS!"

Mariah came to the door. "Can I help you guys?" Abed and Troy did not look at the woman who had, in their eyes, tried to split them up by making her choose between the two of them.

"Is it true the library is shortening its hours?" Britta asked.

"Um, yeah. How did you..." Mariah started to say before she was cut off.

"Wait - I've had this question for awhile - why are there still libraries?" Abed asked, overcoming his disdain.

Mariah rolled her eyes. "We're not a warehouse for books. We're a temple of learning. And it's a setting for roughly 76% of your zany adventures, Greendale Seven."

"So what do you want us to do, Annie? We can't fight the machine of ebooks and Google digitizing everything," Jeff pointed out.

"Please, you guys, we can be the loudest advocates on this campus," Annie pointed out.

"And don't trust Google too much," Mariah warned quickly.

This grabbed Britta's attention. "What's up with Google?"

Mariah fidgeted under the sudden attention of the Greendale Seven. "Well, they won't release their algorithms, your search results are based on your previous searches so you run the risk of creating a bubble around yourself, and it isn't a hierarchical search, it's based on hits. They also comply with online censorship in China. Libraries aren't just about books, they're about teaching you guys what to do with information you find." She recited as if this was not the first time she had given this speech, and knew it wouldn't be the last.

Britta bolted suddenly from the room.

"Uh, where is she going?" Mariah asked.

"Probably to make posters and t-shirts to bring down Google," Jeff said mildly.

"So, shorter hours?" Annie insisted.

"Well, we are the only library in the area that's open twenty four hours. City College closes at nine pm, except for finals week. We are considering going to a similar hours schedule," Mariah reasoned.

"But why?" Shirley asked.

"You guys are... really upset about this. You know, we're trying to meet and respond to Greendale's unique needs. Like the end of the year sees a ceremonial trashing of the entire campus. Most of our budget is going to replace the materials you destroy. And we keep track of how many people are here and when, no one is really here after 7, unless it's finals week," Mariah said.

"Oh, Britta would love that. No one tell Britta the librarians do headcounts!" Jeff warned the group.

"Is she the one that... never mind," Mariah said quickly. "Look, it won't be until second semester, so you can still enjoy the last week of this one. And you can still access the library's databases and some of the materials online from home. While not everyone has home internet access, we hope that this will save us a little money."

"We know about Wikipedia, Maya," Pierce said dismissively.

"Right... well, I'd be happy to discuss the budget and principles of library and information science and dissemination with you guys, but I suspect you need to do your own homework, not talk about mine."

"Wait - you go to school for this job?" Troy demanded, his annoyance with her disappearing.

"Well, yeah, I have to keep my masters up to date," Mariah said.

"You are telling me that you are a _Master_ of the _Library_ - like a _Jedi Master_?!" Troy insisted.

"Something like that."

"How hard is it to ask Google a question and read all day?" Shirley wondered out loud.

Mariah looked apoplectic. "Come to me if you have a serious question." She fled the room.

"It's worse than I thought, if the librarians aren't upset," Annie said, toying with her purple pen.

"Well, I wouldn't want to work at a place that's open twenty-four hours," Pierce reasoned. It was unusual for him to apply logic.

"Guys, guys, why do we care if the library isn't open twenty-four hours anymore?" Jeff asked.

"Jeff! It's our home away from home," Annie admonished.

"Is it?" insisted Jeff.

"A lot has gone down in this study room!" Shirley said.

"It's become our living room," Abed pointed out. "And there's something to be said for setting. Where would the Jeffersons be without their deluxe apartment in the sky? The Simpsons couldn't live anywhere other than the fictional Springfield. While Inspector Spacetime has all of space and time to play in, it is his X7 Dimensioniser time booth that he calls home."

"Hogwarts!" Annie said suddenly. "Harry Potter needs it."

Abed shrugged. "If your life was a tv show, what would the main setting be? Wouldn't you want to be able to go there, anytime, day or night?"

Jeff looked a little disgusted.

Shirley and Annie chimed in with their customary, "Aww!"

Pierce asked, "What's your setting, Abed?"

"The Dreamatorium," Abed said without pause.

"But that's my room now. Have you been in my room?!" Troy demanded. For a man who was so attached to Abed, it was a bit strange that now he was worried about Abed being in his room without permission.

"No," Abed said flatly.

Troy was instantly calmed.

"Well," said Pierce, breaking into the conversation. "I know what my setting would be - in the arms of a beautiful woman."

"Gross," Annie cringed.

"That's enough, Pierce," Shirley warned. "I agree with Annie and Abed. It's a shame this place is closing."

"It's not closing!" Jeff shouted. "It's just not going to be open twenty-four hours!"

"It might be the beginning of the end," Troy said sadly.

...

"Jeff! I've made an inventory of famous librarians so you'll help us. Although I've excluded any librarians you might not actually know of," Abed ambushed Jeff as he was coming out of his history class.

"Does it include any Playmates?" Jeff asked.

Abed frowned at his list. "While the list does lean towards the trope of 'sexy librarian', I've tried to avoid any outright objectification out of respect for Britta."

"All right. Hit me with your stupid list."

"Giacomo Casanova - arguably the first of the sexy librarians, world's greatest lover and inventor of the national lottery."

"I thought you were avoiding that trope."

"Does it count when they're men?"

"Never mind. Did he really invent the lottery?"

"Yep. Next on the list: Batgirl."

"Obviously."

Abed ignored this interruption. "Thomas Jefferson  
Benjamin Franklin  
Laura Bush  
Lewis Carroll  
Madeline L'Engle  
Mao Zedong-"

"We should try and avoid any dictators," Jeff interrupted.

"We?"

"You."

Abed made a note before continuing with his list, "Marcel Proust  
Elizabeth Taylor - the novelist, not the actress-  
And as to the Fictional Librarians-"

"Wasn't Batgirl the second on your list?"

Abed gave Jeff a leveling gaze, daring the lawyer to argue with him. Jeff decided to let it go.

Abed went on, "Flynn Carson, played by Noah Wyle in the horrible "The Librarian" trilogy.  
Marian Paroo from "The Music Man"  
Mr. Dewey in "The Pagemaster"  
Evie Carnahan O'Connor from the Mummy franchise, but not the disappointing third Mummy, "Tomb of the Dragon Emperor" where Evie is inexplicably a romance novelist."

"That's quite a fall."

"You're telling me. And Last But Not Least: Rupert Giles in "Buffy; the Vampire Slayer.""

"Well obviously."

Abed folded up his list. "Well? Are you going to help us?"

"Look. Mariah was right. They have budget constraints like everyone else in the world. If they want to keep buying books, they're going to have to make some cuts somewhere. If there's no one in the library after eleven, maybe they should save the money it would take to staff two people. And in case you haven't noticed, we do hang out outside of Study Room F now."

Jeff stopped suddenly in the hall.

On the wall was a handmade sign that said

"BURSTING YOUR BUBBLE!

DON'T TRUST GOOGLE

FOR YOUR SEARCHES

SEE THE LIBRARY FOR DETAILS!"

There was another one.

"A squirrel dying in front of your house may be more relevant to your interests right now than people dying in Africa."

~Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook.

TALK TO YOUR LIBRARIAN ABOUT ONLINE CENSORSHIP

"Britta," Jeff glowered.

"Disappointing," Abed said. "She used papyrus font."


	2. Chapter 2

Jeff stormed into the library with Abed on his heels - or he would have, but there was a huge crowd in front of the desk, calling out questions. Mariah and her co-worker looked completely overwhelmed.

"Is this a poetry book?!" yelled Leonard holding up a giant tome.

"If you're in another country, like Texas, and your brother is being eaten by an alligator, what number do you dial to get 9-1-1?" asked a man who looked a little like Starburns...

"Can you find me a website to adopt a cat? But not a real cat, I'm allergic," queried Quendra.

"Would books about pirates be in the 'P' section?" Neil demanded.

"Do you have a globe of the Earth that's life sized?" Vicky wanted to know.

"One at a time!" cried Mariah in desperation.

Jeff and Abed spotted Britta in the back of the crowd.

"Proud of yourself?" Jeff asked, sidling up to her.

"Yup. No one is using Google and instead they're turning to the librarians. Now they can't shorten their hours, so Annie wins too," Britta whispered conspiratorially.

"You really got all those people to stop using Google?" Abed asked.

"What are they using instead?" Jeff asked.

"Bing: 'Because it's not Google!" she sing-songed.

"Which is... run by Microsoft?" Jeff pointed out.

"Dammit." Britta's shoulders slumped.

"C'mon, dummy, you're new at this. Let's go meet the rest of the group." Jeff said wryly. The three managed to weave through the crowd without losing each other.

"Oh good, everyone is here," said Annie when they stumbled in and closed the door against the crowd of questioning patrons.

"Abed, Troy and I are planning a rally/sit-in in defense of the library," Annie said, flipping open a deep blue notebook and flipping to the back.

"It's the only way," Troy said.

Abed nodded.

"I'm going to sell brownies," Shirley cooed.

"I have no part in this," said Pierce.

"What? You guys, this is insane!" Jeff ripped the notebook from Annie's hand.

"JEFF GIVE THAT BACK TO ME RIGHT NOW!" she screamed.

He held it high above her head and she jumped to retrieve it.

"No! No stupid rallies. This is idiotic." He watched Annie jumping for a beat - he couldn't

help it - she was... jiggling.

"GIVE ME BACK MY NOTEBOOK, I NEED IT!" Annie demanded, trying to jump higher.

"Why?"

"I have notes in it!" She stopped jumping and crossed her arms over her boobs. Pity. She pouted and unleashed the Disney eyes.

This was overreacting, even for Annie, who once ripped apart the study room in search of her purple pen. Jeff was suspicious. Keeping the notebook high above her head, he flipped open to the first page.

The rest of the group looked on with interest as Annie started jumping again.

"NONONONONONO!"

The first page looked like a list in bright purple:  
_Annie - R_  
_Jeff - S_  
_Britta - S_  
_Pierce - S_  
_Abed - H_  
_Troy - G_  
_Shirley - G_

_Dean Pelton = Dumbledore - sexually ambiguous?_

He looked back at the list.

"Annie did you sort us into Houses?" Jeff dropped the notebook into her hands.

She caught it and her cheeks burned with her blush.

"WHAT?" the group exclaimed.

"And you put me in Slytherin?" Jeff demanded. He was a_ Gryffindor_, dammit! Wait a minute, he wasn't _anything_. Because it was _stupid_.

There was a sudden rush for Annie's notebook.

The other two Slytherins were just as unhappy.

"And of course you put yourself in Ravenclaw," Britta sneered. "Besides, Pottermore said I was a Hufflepuff!"

"Stop it you guys. I'm taking a Harry Potter class!" Annie shouted, letting that one sink in.

"AWESOME!" Troy and Abed said in unison.

"Can we focus on the rally now?" Shirley asked.

"No!" said Pierce and Jeff simultaneously.

The group turned on them.

"You need to go stand in the corner and think about what you just said," Shirley demanded, pointing them to two corners of the room.

"No?" Jeff said. His voice only wavered a little.

"That's ridiculous," Pierce agreed.

The entire group glared at the two debbie downers.

And the next thing Jeff and Pierce knew, they were standing in the corners, listening to the group plan the rally. Annie had already filed permission with the Dean for next Monday and had downloaded tips for rallies from the American Library Association's website. Britta had taken to her Slytherin role, declaring herself the Prefect and that they should burn books to catch people's attention. Troy told her no, and instead put her in charge of decorating.

Jeff groaned and leaned against the wall. Pierce kept trying to get Jeff's attention, but Jeff learned to ignore him after Shirley yelled at them both.

…

After planning all weekend at Casa de Tro-bed & Annie (Jeff and Pierce were not invited), Monday morning was lost in a haze of set up. Annie even skipped a class (but it was okay, because it was just the review session before the Final on Wednesday).

What resulted was beyond anyone's expectations, except perhaps, Troy, Abed, and Britta's. They had constructed an enormous book fort. The books were divided into  
sections, staying in call number order (Abed's demand). As a result, they had created areas and lounges for each and every major at Greendale. The chemistry people were chilling in the Q's, the history people were spread through the D's and a bit into the E's. Shirley was selling brownies in the T's. Britta had set up camp in the H's. The primary education majors were taking turns reading picture books aloud to everyone. People were packed into the fort as Abed and Troy took to their stage.

Abed threw down a beat.

Before long, they had the attention of everyone in the fort. Troy began, "Donde, está, la biblioteca? Me llamo T-Bone La araña discoteca."

Abed continued their rap, "Discoteca, muñeca, La biblioteca Está en bigotes grandes, el perro, manteca."

"Manteca, bigotes, gigante, pequeño, la cabeza es nieve, cerveza es bueno!"

"Buenos dias, me gusta papas frías, los bigotes de la cabra Es Cameron Diaz!"

By the end, the entirety of the fort were on their feet, cheering for Troy, for Abed, and for the library.

"Troy and Abed in a book fort!" they sing-songed, and the show had begun.

They called up students to testify for the library, and to demand that they stay open for 24 hours. The librarians eventually all wandered in, curious about what was going on now in Study Room F. Chang was there, twirling a nightstick in the HV's, keeping a very close eye on Britta.

"I'm simply exercising my right to protest, pig," Britta called, glaring at Chang.

"And I'm simply exercising my right to look at these books about gulags," Chang shot back.

"That's Russia, idiot," Britta taunted.

"Lo-chang-tion, lo-chang-tion, lo-chang-tion!"

After Garrett's testimony, the Dean, seduced by the fervor of the crowd, took the mic to testify himself. "I can't con-DEAN the library shortening its hours, especially since I'm happy that Jeffery and his study group can be on campus at any time. However, I also can't afford to pay the librarians for 24 hours, so you'll have to volunteer your time. Yay, Greendale!"

As one, Mariah and the other librarians crossed their arms.

Jeff had had enough. He jumped up on the stage and took the mic from the Dean (careful not to even brush fingers with him). "Look you guys are being dumb. After last year, after being expelled, haven't we proved that we can band together?"

"You never returned my texts!" came an old voice from the crowd.

"Shut up, Leonard, you know you're not invited!" "As I was saying..." Jeff turned back to the crowd. "Greendale is great. It really is. I am grateful for my time here, something I never would have admitted four years ago. But it's a perfect home... for as long as you need it. And just like every other place you've called home, eventually, you're gonna have to break out of your chrysalis, spread your wings, and fly." He paused as Troy let out a sob. "The Friends left the coffee shop; Chandler and Monica moved to the burbs, but Joey, he moved to L.A. and got a spin off. Frasier left Cheers and got a radio show in Seattle. Harry Potter dropped out of Hogwarts to go look for Horcruxes.

"I guess what I'm saying is, go look for your Horcruxes. Your kids can come here and have their own college experiences. Because Greendale isn't closing, and neither is the library. Madame Pince over there will still be here when they do."

"I think I should resent that?" Mariah said.

Jeff shrugged.

Mariah marched up and pulled the mic from him. "Right, everyone. It's either we go to shorter hours, or we have to lose journal subscriptions. Starting with_ Sports Illustrated,_" she threatened.

As if Mariah had muttered a magic spell, most of the crowd vanished. The Dean muttered something about men's beach volleyball and slipped out of the study room book fort.

"Huh," she said, turning to the study group.

The line of librarians in the back brought in a few carts and began dismantling the fort.

"Thank you for keeping them in LC order, at least," one said to the group.

"My idea," Abed said. Troy and Abed did their handshake before helping the librarians.

"How come I feel like I Britta'd this?" Britta asked sadly as the group clustered around her, drawn by the sudden gravity of the imploding rally.

"Did you just turn your name into a verb?" Mariah asked, looking up from her cart.

"It's been happening for awhile," admitted Abed.

"Does "to Britta" mean to advocate and affect positive change?" Mariah asked.

"No, it means to make a huge mistake. Obviously," Troy rolled his eyes.

Mariah looked perplexed. "But... you guys didn't make a mistake."

"We didn't?" asked Annie.

"No," said one of the other librarians. "We appreciate the free marketing."

"Yeah, you guys rallied around us - we were sure no one would notice that we were shortening the hours. We like being proven wrong, in this case," another chimed in, quickly organizing the books on her cart.

"But we didn't accomplish anything!" Shirley insisted.

"Yeah, actually you did. We're going to leave the library open 24 hours during mid-terms and finals," Mariah said.

"I guess that's better than nothing," said Annie.

"You crammed half the school and a book fort into this library. Quite apart from breaking a few fire codes, it's pretty impressive," a librarian tried to offer comfort.

"Elsie is right. You guys should feel pretty proud of yourself. Now," Mariah said, pushing a cart towards the group, "you can help us put these away."

As it turned out, Abed was a savant at shelving.

The rest of the group managed to shelve one cart to the librarian's two, or in some cases, three. It only took two hours to put back what Abed, Britta, and Troy had pulled without discretion.

As the group met back in study room F to collect their things, Mariah wheeled in one last cart.

"I thought we were done with the books and the shelving!" Troy flailed.

"No no, you are," Mariah soothed. I just pulled some books I thought you guys would like to read over the holiday break.

"I don't read that many books, unless they're novelizations, or somehow critical of pop culture," Abed said.

She pulled a small paperback off her cart. _"Remake_, by Connie Willis. Known for her science fiction, and this one is about the future of movie making," she pressed it into his hand.

"Cool. Cool cool cool."

To Annie, she passed an ornate black book called _The Night Circus_ by Erin Morganstern. Mariah's eyes gleamed as she did so, silently conveying her love for the  
novel. To Jeff, she passed_ Trickster's Choice_ by Tamora Pierce. "You were a little too specific with those _Harry Potter_ details," she muttered under her breath to him.

"It's not an e-book, and probably never will be, but this guy is hysterical," Mariah said, passing Pierce _How I Got This Way_ by Patrick F. McManus.

Shirley cooed when she was handed _The Five People You Meet in Heaven_ by Mitch Albom. Troy looked intrigued by Ransom Riggs' _Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar_  
_Children_.

"And for you, Britta," she passed two books over: _Double Fold; libraries and the assault on __paper_ by Nicholson Baker and _The Googlization of Everything_ by Siva  
Vaidhyanathan. "Use them well."

"Thank you," Britta said.

"Thank you," Mariah insisted. "Now, if you'll excuse me, we're closing in a few minutes..." She pushed her cart out of the room.

The group turned to Jeff.

"Uh, guys, I'm not some speech making machine," he insisted.

"Yes you are," Annie said.

"Statistically speaking," Abed said, not even looking up from his book, "You make about 98% of all speeches in this group."

"Yeah. But I already made mine today, and I stand by it," Jeff flipped through his own book.

"Who wants to come to Casa de Trobed and Annie to study? We have snacks. And Yatzee, we should really play that game," Troy offered.

"I'll bring the brownies. They didn't sell as well as I had hoped," Shirley said.

"And I can teach you guys all about the Founding Fathers," said Pierce.

"Because he remembers them," Jeff muttered.

Britta smiled and ran a finger down the spines of her books. "Do you think I could be a librarian for a psych library?"

"Britta, just write a letter next time," Troy said.

Annie smiled at her book. "You know, they're really good at recommending books. 'The circus arrives without warning,'" she read dreamily.

"Not worried about the library closing, Annie?"

And if by magic, the opening strains of an alternative rock song filtered through the library's PA system.

"Well that's about as creative as Glee club's paintball songs," Annie commented.

_Closing time_  
_Open all the doors and let you out into the world_  
_Closing time_  
_Turn all of the lights on over every boy and every girl_

_Closing time_  
_Once last call for alcohol,so finish your whiskey or beer_  
_Closing time_  
_You don't have to go home but you can't stay here._

The Greendale 7 gathered their things and made their way out into the world, like the song suggested.

Even if the world was, for now anyway, Troy, Abed, and Annie's apartment to study for their final exams.


End file.
